whenever my friend and i watch a period drama the same discussion will always ensue. she’ll lament that we were born in the wrong era and talk about how happy we’d be if we could live in those times. i’ll try to convince her that we’d be bored out of our minds with just sewing and wandering around in gardens to keep us occupied. she’d rebut with the opinion that if sewing and garden wandering was all we ever knew we’d be content. i’d remind her that you’d have to be (a) rich or (b) married rich to actually enjoy worry free sewing and garden wandering. she’d say that being rich is a positive, not a negative. i’d remind her that we’d have to play lots of card games and that she hated them. she’d remind me i loved card games. and so it went on.

i secretly agreed with her though, living on a country estate in those days must have been pretty damn sweet. IF you were rich and got to picnic all day and other people made your meals for you.

on that note, did anyone watch the latest glee with gwyneth? i thought it very cringey. what happened glee!

my new tv obsession is boardwalk empire, which is not surprising since mad men just ended (sad face) and i needed another period drama to fill the void. set in prohibition era atlantic city, the story revolves around nucky thompson – played by the ridiculously awesome and surprisingly… dare i say attractive steve buscemi – and the various gangsters, government agents and ordinary folk whose lives are influenced by the fortunes and misfortunes of bootlegging and other illegal activities…

the characters are interesting, the acting is top notch, there’s plenty of nudity and sex (something i always felt mad men kind of lacked, he he) and it is also super violent (scorsese / gansters – what do you expect?) certainly the most impressive thing for me is the set design & the effort that went into recreating atlantic city in the twenties.

the set, which features a 300ft “period-perfect rendition” of Atlantic City in the early 1920s, took three months to build includes depictions of storefronts, cars and the boardwalk itself. after filming, digital effects were used to add details like skylines, billboards, piers and beaches, whose looks were based on vintage postcards.

the costumes are also to die for – look out for the scenes in the dress shop and all the outfits the ladies wear.

i will always love the party, mostly due to the fact that the phrase ‘birdie num num’ is a running joke in my family. second to peter sellers’ antics, the best thing about this film is the house where all the action goes down. as a kid i thought nothing was more glamorous than a house that had a water running through it (am i right?) … i still kind of think that! i also love the way sellers wanders around, completely out of place – i totally empathise with his party awkwardness… obviously the sixties vibe completely appeals to me as well. haven’t seen the party? do it.

okay okay there will be no more mad men posts for a while, this is the last one i promise

have you voted in the mad men casting call competition? basically people take photos of themselves in mad men era get-ups hoping to win a walk on role in an episode of the show. rad! i have to say i do not agree with who is top ranked right now…. these are my personal favourites (click on the pics to be taken to their pages to vote)